This application is a divisional of co-pending application Ser. No. 11/387,670, filed on Mar. 23, 2006, the disclosure of which is herein totally incorporated by reference in its entirety.
This invention relates to the field of hand held rotary tools and related accessories.
Hand held rotary tools are widely used by many people, including craftspeople, homeowners, and artists. These rotary tools typically include an outer housing designed to be easily held within a human hand. The housing retains an electric motor which is operable to drive a rotatable chuck of the rotary tool. A mandrel may be releasably coupled to the chuck so as to be rotatably driven by the rotary tool. In turn, an accessory may be releasably secured to the mandrel thereby enabling the rotary tool to rotatably drive the accessory. The accessory may be a cut-off wheel, a polishing wheel, a grinding wheel, a sanding disc, or any other similar member.
There exists a variety of mandrels that are configured to releasably secure an accessory thereto. One such mandrel includes a base having a threaded aperture and a clamping screw that cooperate to clamp the accessory to the mandrel between the base and the clamping screw. With the accessory so clamped, rotation of the mandrel by the rotary tool causes rotation of the accessory thereby allowing the user to perform work on a workpiece.
In order to change an accessory that is secured to a mandrel of the type described above, it is typically necessary to loosen and remove the clamping screw from the base. Of course, in order to loosen the clamping screw, the user must first obtain an appropriately sized screwdriver, which may not be immediately available to the user. Furthermore, some users find the task of turning a screw tedious. Also, once the clamping screw is separated from meshing engagement from the base, the clamping screw is susceptible to being inadvertently dropped and lost since it is a relatively small, separate component.
Mandrels that overcome the shortcomings of the threaded aperture mandrel are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/187,139 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/187,140, both filed on Jul. 21, 2005, which are herein incorporated by reference. The mandrels disclosed in these two applications incorporate a specifically configured coupling portion which is used with a complimentarily formed hub component on an accessory to removably couple the accessory to the mandrel.
While the mandrels with specifically configured coupling portions are a significant improvement over the threaded aperture mandrels, the availability of multiple types of mandrels presents various problems. By way of example, to account for multiple mandrel types, a manufacturing entity must be tooled to produce accessories that are compatible with both types of mandrels. Thus, for each accessory manufactured, such as a cut-off wheel, a polishing wheel, a grinding wheel, a sanding disc, or any other similar accessory, at least two different hub components must be manufactured for each type of accessory. Moreover, each type of accessory must be specially marked to identify the particular type of mandrel the accessory is to be used with.
The use of multiple types of mandrels by consumers presents additional problems in a retail setting. As an initial matter, when exhibiting a single type of accessory, each mandrel type should be separately displayed. Thus, valuable shelf space is lost merely to provide for each type of mandrel. Moreover, each additional type of mandrel increases the administrative burden of properly stocking an adequate number of accessories. Finally, it is inevitable that some customers will purchase an accessory designed for a mandrel other than the type owned by the customers. This leads to additional administrative burdens on the retailer as well as delay and frustration for the customers.
What is needed is a configuration for an accessory that reduces the problems associated with the use by consumers of multiple types of mandrels. It would be beneficial if the configuration was easily incorporated into the manufacturing process and could be used with multiple types of accessories.